


mere death is not defeat

by templemarker



Category: Farscape, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars (2004)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:22:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22583254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker
Summary: Crichton had once joked, in that strange, lonely manner of his, "Today is a good day to die!" It had the ring of a saying, or a quote, but Crichton hadn't elaborated, only clapped D'Argo on the shoulder and shook his head, melancholy sitting on him like a cloak. For some reason the phrase kept running around in his mind. It was not a good day to die; there was never a good day to die, only a day marking the end of this life, and whatever came beyond.
Relationships: Ka D'Argo & Zotoh Zhaan, Ka D'Argo/Lo'Laan Tal
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	mere death is not defeat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tanaqui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/gifts).



> Tanaqui, I was absolutely thrilled for the opportunity to revisit one of my very favorite television shows of all time for your request/prompt! I remembered just how much I loved Farscape in writing this story -- I can't believe it's been fifteen years since the miniseries/finale. 
> 
> This takes place directly from "Peacekeeper Wars: Part 2".

_Pain is good. It means I'm still alive._

Ka D'Argo might take his last breath on this planet, but he will do it as Luxan warrior, Qualta Blade in his hands or not. Crichton had once joked, in that strange, wild-eyed manner of his, "Today is a good day to die!" It had the ring of a proverb, or a quote, but Crichton hadn't elaborated, only clapped D'Argo on the shoulder and shook his head, his melancholy sitting on his shoulders like a heavy cloak. 

For some reason the phrase kept running around in his mind, bleeding out from the wound he had taken for Chiana even as he took shot after shot against the incoming Scarrans. It was not a good day to die; there was never a good day to die, only a day marking the end of this life, and whatever came beyond. 

Just as he knew he'd be overrun, a hideous shudder roiled through the water planet, down to its very core. He knew, then, that Crichton had followed through on his threats -- the wormhole weapon was activated. A bright white light crested before his eyes, and D'Argo let out a cry, his last as a warrior, and the day was his.

§§§

When he opened them again--

His mind hung on that thought. His eyes were open. He could see: see lights, down the corridor of what looked like Moya. 

But D'Argo knew he was dead. 

"What is death?" asked Zhaan; in a blink she was there before him, her lovely smile sweeping across her face; she was dead too, he _knew_ this. 

"What is death?" this Zhaan asked again, and when he took a breath to demand answers, she took his hand in hers; it felt like her, he knew her touch, even as he knew her to be dead. 

"I don't--" D'Argo started, and faced with her calm, compassionate reserve, he couldn't help but tell the truth. "I don't know. An end."

"Is it?" Zhaan, or whatever simulacrum of her replied, and it took all of his limited patience not to roll his eyes as he had learned to do from Crichton, and convey his annoyance. 

She smiled, as if she knew what he was thinking -- undoubtedly she did, in whatever frelling afterlife this was -- and squeezed his hand, a moment of reassurance that did more to convince him of the reality of this situation than any words she could have said. 

"What is an end?" she asked, gently, and D'Argo sucked in a shaky breath; he knew this question. The Orican Nilaam had asked it of him, once, as they idled in bed after a hot, sweaty night. 

D'Argo was always attracted to strange females. It was a truth about himself he'd had to accept very early in his life. 

"An end can be anything; an end can be a beginning," he answered, almost by rote, remembering anew how Nilaam had toyed with philosophy like a grat cub playing at hunting. 

Zhaan dipped her head in acknowledgement of a correct answer, and he ran his thumb over her hand where they still touched. 

"John Crichton made this wormhole, with knowledge his mind can only bear for long enough to spare this universe from ripping out of all existence," Zhaan said, so forthcoming D'Argo was briefly rattled. "An infinitude of such universes have been lost; an infinitude have been spared. Yet he knows only the smallest morsel of all that tessellates these realities."

"I'm not--" D'Argo began, but Zhaan lifted her free hand to his face and quieted him. 

"Our Crichton thinks in space, and matter," she said softly in this strange, unreal space. "You and I are here together not because of space; we may share this moment because of time."

"Zhaan," and he truly believed it was her now, come back or come forward or some other fahrbot yotzing he couldn't get his head around, "I've missed you. So much."

She smiled, serenity rippling out from her inner well of calm, and drew their heads together. 

D'Argo shuddered out a breath when they parted -- was he truly even breathing? No wonder Crichton went fahrbot so often -- and asked the only question he could. "Why am I here? I'm only myself, a simple soldier; I'm no Orican, grasping at the strings of the universe. I died a warrior's death -- whatever death means," he said wryly. 

Zhaan quirked her mouth in acknowledgment of the point, drawing him close so that D'Argo held her in a familiar embrace, like a friend, like family; the familiarity of genuine trust. 

"One need not be a Pa'u to turn the balance of the universe," she said, a little coy, and D'Argo couldn't help but huff out a laugh. It was a bitter truth: Moya and her crew had never recovered from the loss of her. They'd been running around like headless drannits ever since.

"The smallest ant could cross the universe on a thread, if given the opportunity," she continued. 

"What's an ant?" D'Argo asked, confused. 

"Ah, my sensitive D'Argo: the question isn't _whatsit_ , but _which_ is it," she said, and D'Argo _did_ roll his eyes then because there was no other response he could give to hearing that drelk, familiar and beloved as it was, come from her lips. 

She laughed at him, and it felt like a thousand delicate shilquenes chiming at once. He shook his head, laughing too. It felt like a weight lifted; he couldn't remember the last time he had laughed. 

Zhaan drew him close once more, pressing the crown of her head softly where it met D'Argo's forehead. "Perhaps," she said, almost a whisper, "a warrior and a priest can learn how to help each other."

D'Argo closed his eyes, remembering. "We did learn," he said, the memory precious to him. "I never stopped learning from you, even after you were gone."

"Nor I from you, dear D'Argo; I have waited an eternity and the briefest micron for this moment, here with you." Zhaan ran a gentle hand down D'Argo's tenkas, and he shivered at the intimate touch; when Zhaan stepped back from the charged space between them, D'Argo felt her loss anew. 

"And so, D'Argo, I will ask you again," she said her tone shifting to something almost formal. "What is death?"

D'Argo ran a hand down his chin, feeling the familiar, slightly raised skin of his borrowed general's command markings; even in death, or whatever this was, he still bore them. Strange. 

"Death is -- I guess death is anything," he said slowly. "If what's happening right now is real, if my warrior's death on the water planet was real, then death isn't the end of something. It's the, uh, the _possibility_ of something. Somethings. Possible somethings." He could feel himself stumbling over his thoughts, trying to put them into words; when he woke up this morning, or whenever that morning had been, he hadn't prepared himself for philosophical-spiritual sophistry with his beloved, long-dead friend. But then, he hadn't planned on dying, either. 

"And--" he continued, furrowing his brow in concentration, "if the _where_ of things is so fluid, maybe--maybe the _when_ of things is kind of, uh, wobbly too?" He blew out a breath. "The, er, the _which_ of things, maybe. Like you said before, kind of. Honestly, you were this frelling cryptic when you were alive, I don't know what else I could've expected from you in death," he said wryly. 

Zhaan's smile widened once more; she looked entirely pleased. "Timey-wimey," he thought she muttered approvingly under her breath, and he was about to ask what the frell she was talking about when she clapped her hands together. As she pulled them apart, a light began to grow between them, bright white and almost pulsing. It looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. 

"I am so very proud of you, my dear D'Argo," she said to him affectionately, and D'Argo ducked his head, suddenly overcome with feelings. Even setting aside this whole -- death, or death-like hezmana-ish nonsense, he felt so very out of his depth. 

"You see, sweet D'Argo, at the moment when you drew your last breath from the universe whence we came, our John's brilliant, hideous wormhole device snurched you from that reality in an infinitesimal microt. And that, my dear, opens you up to all the potentiality that _might be_ , the ever-fluid _which_ of things; all the possibilities of unrealized realities, and you perfectly unconstrained by matter, space, or time itself, relative or otherwise."

The light between her hands began to pulse, and D'Argo could feel it like a heartbeat. 

"And so, my beloved ant, we shall tesselate this thread, and realize an unrealized potentiality for you," she said. "I love you, D'Argo. Go in peace unto your next life."

"I love you too," D'Argo said, confused, as a bright wash of light blinded his eyes. "Hey, wait a frelling micron, what in the hezmana is an _ant_ \--"

§§§

When he opened them again--

Well, he shut them immediately. D'Argo almost didn't _want_ to know where the dren he was now. 

Whatever light there was remained bright, like a full sun over a summer field. He could feel -- was that grass, against his tenkas? It felt like well-grown grass, sweet and green, almost crushed beneath his weight and giving off a pleasant, sun-warmed smell. 

He carefully stretched out his fingers where they lay next to him, and rich, moist soil crumbled into his palms. He could feel a breeze, prickling up his skin; somewhere in the distance he could smell a fire, a hearth or a roasting spit or something like that. 

It felt very familiar, which scared the biznak out of him. 

D'Argo didn't want to open his eyes; what if this were all some boll yotz, a sign that he'd gone completely fahrbot and back again? His breath hitched, and hitched again at how familiar the scents of the air were; it had been decacycles since he'd experienced them and still they were fresh in his mind as if he'd just stepped out for a fellip nectar and always meant to come back. 

"D'Argo?" came a voice off to the side, and D'Argo's eyes flashed open. He scrambled away from the voice, struggling to put distance between them, wishing desperately he had his Qualta Blade grasped firmly in his hands. 

"D'Argo, honey? What are you doing?" The woman peered at him, a slight frown on her face. 

D'Argo could no longer pretend he couldn't see. 

It was Lo'Laan. Of course it was. Alive, healthy. A little older than he remembered her being, but she was such a well-burnished memory to him that he couldn't trust his recollection. 

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" Lo'Laan asked, worried, and D'Argo coughed out the air in his lungs, desperately trying to find the words, any word, to speak to his long-dead wife standing in front of him. She looked alive, and healthy. She looked frelling beautiful. 

Lo'Laan took a step forward, and it took all of D'Argo's training not to take a further step away. She reached out a hand to touch his arm, and he could feel himself trembling, overcome. 

"Sweetheart," Lo'Laan said in the voice she always used when he was clearly sick but refused to take the day off to rest. "Did you drink some of that drenning raz'lak Harboor makes in their garden shed? You know it's barely ingestible, please tell me you didn't let that idiot convince you to try out 'a new blend'," she said, exaggerating the words; she had never like Harboor, not because they were particularly terrible, but more because they were wasting what talent they possessed creating new ways to stay constantly drunk. 

"No," he managed to grind out, desperately trying to calm himself down. 

Lo'Laan tilted her open, beloved face to the side, assessing him. "Perhaps you've had too much sun," she said slowly, like she was trying to convince him more than herself. "Why don't you come inside? You can sit with Jothee as he plays with his blocks, have some citrix juice; a pause at the height of the day can't hurt, and you'd be giving me the opportunity to concentrate on drying out all that flennik Trouan Pleither brought over the other day."

D'Argo just nodded, at a loss for -- all of this. 

They walked back to their home, through the fields that looked just as they did when he lived here last, before everything went so terribly wrong. Lo'Laan settled him in his favorite oversized chair, put a cold mug in his hand, and brushed her palm across his forehead, his cheek, his chin. That was a Sebacean thing, that touch for reassurance; Luxans were careful to leave a person's face alone, unless there was a deep intimacy between people. Even then it was significant. 

He had learned to love it, from Lo'Laan's hands. 

D'Argo could hear Jothee in the other room; he must still be a boy, no tragedy yet marking cuts in his life. He was not the bitter, hot-heated young Luxxer who carried a grievance against his father for all the terrible failings wrought on their lives. 

_Unrealized realities,_ whispered Zhaan's voice in his mind. _Possible potentialities._

He could do it all over again. He could save his wife, his family; he knew what might come, and he could prepare against it. 

They could have their life, together, for as long as they could hold it. 

This was the past, but not truly; it was another reality, except for all the ways it was obviously the same. D'Argo clutched the mug to his chest, barely noticing the condensation bleeding into the smooth linen of his shirt. A shirt he had lost long ago, with his family, this farm, and all the joy that he had ever found in his life. 

There was a slight crash, the sound of blocks tumbling to the ground, and Jothee hurried out. "It's fine! Nothing's wrong! Don't worry!"

D'Argo could feel tears pricking at his eyes. He had forgotten how young his son was, how perfect and innocent he was at this age. 

"I'm not worried," he said hoarsely. "Come here, my son."

With no wariness, no fear or recrimination, the boy loped across the room and scrambled up into D'Argo's lap, curling up against his chest like Jothee was certain it was his own to claim. D'Argo struggled to keep his tears from spilling, and was careful to hold Jothee close, but not tight in the desperate, grieving grip his arms wanted to do. 

"Papa," Jothee asked idly, playing with the loose threads on D'Argo's work shirt, "will you tell me a story?"

"Yes," D'Argo said, running a hand alongside Jothee's forehead, cheek, chin. His boy had never known anything other than such casual Sebacean affection; D'Argo would ensure that he would always feel so cared for. Safe. Loved. 

Lo'Laan came to the front room just as D'Argo had taken a breath to tell the story; she took one look at them and the worry eased from her mouth; the light came back into her eyes. She set down her tools and came over to them, smiling. "Storytime, I take it?"

"Yeah! Papa's going to tell a really good one, I know it," Jothee said, careless in his pleasure and certainty. 

"Well," Lo'Laan said, laughing, "I definitely have to hear this! A D'Argo story I haven't heard -- I can hardly imagine!" 

She bent down, rubbing her cheek atop Jothee's head, then bending over to place a familiar, loving kiss against D'Argo's mouth. It was all he could do not to pull her against him, and never let Lo'Laan or Jothee out of his sight for the rest of their lives. 

Lo'Laan settled next to D'Argo, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Tell us a story, Papa," she teased, and D'Argo smiled in a way he hadn't for half a lifetime. 

"Once upon a time," he said, remembering suddenly how Crichton always liked to start a tale, "there was a beautiful, lonely Leviathan. Her name was Moya, and she sailed among the stars, searching for her crew..."

**Author's Note:**

> "Heghlu'DI' mobbe'lu'chugh QaQpu' Hegh wanI." -- Klingon Honor Guard Manual
> 
> _Death is an experience best shared._
> 
> * * *
> 
> _Yet if my line should die,  
>  It dies with its teeth in the enemy's throat,  
> It dies with its name on the enemy's tongue.  
> For just as mere life is not victory,  
> Mere death is not defeat;  
> And in the next world I shall kill the foe a thousand times,  
> Laughing,  
> Undefeated._
> 
> \-- Klingon Ritualistic Song, from _Kahless_


End file.
